than a
scullery maid whiles she's at hame. And it's certain I'd rather eat
scones of her baking than any I've ever tasted.

I always sit sae that I can watch her whiles I'm reading. She never
lets me get very far wi'oot some comment.

"No bad," she'll murmur, whiles, and I'll gae on, for that means a
muckle frae her. Then, maybe, instead o' that, she'll just listen, and
I'll see she's no sure. If she mutters a little I'll gae on, too, for
that still means she's making up her mind. But when she says, "Stop
yer ticklin'!" I always stop. For that means the same thing they meant
in Rome when they turned their thumbs doon toward a gladiator. And her
judgments aye been gude enow for me.

Sometimes I'll get long letters frae authors wha send me their songs--
but nearly always they're frae those that wad be flattered tae be
called authors, puir bodies who've no proper notion of how to write or
how to go aboot getting what they've written accepted when they've
done it. I mind a man in Lancashire who sent me songs for years. The
first was an awfu' thing--it had nae meaning at a' that I could see.
But his letter was a delight.

"Dear Harry," he wrote. "I've been sorry for a long time that so
clever a man as you had such bad songs to sing. And so, though I'm
busy most of the time, I've written one for you. I like you, so I'll
only charge you a guinea for every time you sing it, and let you set
your own music to it, too!"

It was a generous offer, surely, but I did not see my way clear to
accept it, and the song went back immediately. A little later I got
another. He wrote a very dignified letter this time; he'd evidently
made up his mind to forgie me for the way I'd insulted him and his
song before, but he wanted me to understand he'd have nae nonsense
frae me. But this time he wanted only fifteen shilling a performance.

Weel, he kept on sending me songs, and each one was worse than the one
before, though you'd never have thought it possible for anything to be
worse than any one of them if you'd seen them! And each time his price
went doon! The last one was what he called a "grand new song."

"I'm hard up just now, Harry," he said, "and you know how fond I've
always been of you. So you can have this one outright for five
shillings, _cash down_."

D'ye ken, I thought his persistence deserved a reward of some sort,
sae I sent him the five shillings, and put his song in the fire. I
rather thought I was a fool tae do sae, be